Abbas Retracts Claim That Israeli Rabbis Called for Poisoning Water

JERUSALEM — A little more than a day after President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority accused rabbis in Israel of calling for their government to poison the water used by Palestinians, he retracted the allegation in a statement on Saturday, saying it had become “evident” that it was “baseless.”

Mr. Abbas made the unsubstantiated allegation during an address to the European Parliament on Thursday. The remarks echoed anti-Semitic claims that led to the mass killings of European Jews in medieval times.

The Palestine Liberation Organization had initially published the allegation on a website run by one of its offices, and it spread through some regional news media outlets.

Mr. Abbas’s retraction was sent to reporters early Saturday morning, issued by the P.L.O., of which Mr. Abbas is the chairman. It said that Mr. Abbas “rejected all claims that accuse him and the Palestinian people of offending the Jewish religion.” It added that he “also condemned all accusations of anti-Semitism.”

“After it has become evident that the alleged statements by a rabbi on poisoning Palestinian wells, which were reported by various media outlets, are baseless, President Mahmoud Abbas has affirmed that he didn’t intend to do harm to Judaism or to offend Jewish people around the world,” the statement continued.

It was not immediately clear why Mr. Abbas repeated the allegation on Thursday, days after it was widely debunked. Neither the rabbi who supposedly made the claim, nor the organization quoted in the original P.L.O. article, appear to exist.

After the speech on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said that Mr. Abbas had spread a “blood libel” with his remarks.

Mr. Abbas, along with President Reuven Rivlin of Israel, had been invited to Brussels by European officials hoping to revive peace negotiations.

In October, Mr. Abbas erroneously accused Israeli forces of killing a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who had taken part in the stabbing of two Israelis. The boy had actually been wounded and later recovered.